Having been raised in a Christian household, and choosing to be religion major in college, I have read the Genesis creation narratives quite a few times. Since I’ve read these texts as many times as I have, they’ve honestly lost their luster, becoming merely something I have written papers about, talking at length in seminars about, and now dread having to reread for every other religion course I take. However, hearing these texts put to music has brought new life to them, making it as though I had never read Genesis before.
Listening in particular to Aaron Copland’s “In the Beginning” brought new life to these familiar words. Through its creative uses of various musical patterns, rhythms, and melodies, it became easier to truly envision the separating of the waters into ocean and sky, for example. The division of the upper and lower voices throughout this part of the piece brought emphasis to the separation taking place in Genesis 1:6-8, creating a clearer image in my mind of the story Genesis is attempting to tell, or perhaps more accurately, the story Copland is attempting to tell using Genesis.